


Human Hearts

by ShimmerVee



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Feelings Jams, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Navel-Gazing, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShimmerVee/pseuds/ShimmerVee
Summary: Thank-yous seemed to be for other people.





	Human Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> a conversation set long before mgs4

The longer he looked at him the more he thought he saw Solidus. His eyes were older than the rest of him, older than the very stones at the bottom of the sea. They wouldn't look back at him, just kept staring after the gentle wisps of smoke spinning away from the balcony and into the night. Rose often fretted about the plaguelike misfortune of having fine lines and wrinkles. Snake wasn’t half as vain. Maybe that’s why Raiden was here tonight.

Neither Snake nor his partner had asked. With Big Shell behind them, they had too much in common for language to bridge. Their conversations never really ended, so they never really began either. Otacon gave them space. Snake would sit next to Raiden until the latter felt calm enough to go back home.

They both hated smalltalk. They spoke when they had something to say and that was all.

“What was it like?”

There was a beat before Snake asked, “Huh?”

“Leaving FOXHOUND. What was it like when you realized you weren’t going back? The day after you said, ‘no more’?”

He contemplated the light at the end of his cigarette. “Quiet. Too much freedom at first. Hate to say it but it was a little lonely.”

“So you regret it, then.”

“No. I did my part. I had enough of their politics.” He rolled his thumb over the paper idly. “Figured that once I'd found my own set of morals they wouldn’t like it very much.”

“But you don’t have anything to go back to.”

He tapped the ashes off the ledge and frowned, wanting elaboration.

“If the morals you thought were yours turned out to be unreliable, if that freedom wasn’t good for you, you’d have ruined the foundation that you walked away from.”

“Yup.”

“Did you ever think about going back?”

He leaned his head back. “There’s no point to it. We’re lucky to live in a country with roofs and walls. Food and people. Good people.”

“But what if there isn’t?”

He almost looked at him. “Raiden.”

“What if what they gave you is as good as it gets and-?”

“ _Raiden._ ”

He chewed his lip.

“You’re thinking too hard. Feel it out.”

He wrung his hands as he fought with the words. “I’m _feeling_ like there _is_ no way out. Even if I wanted there to be. And I’m feeling like - like people are garbage.”

“You meet better people.”

“It's not like I get out much. Every new person I meet is a target or a plant or...you. But you’re not like anyone else.”

“And how do you think I got that way, smart guy?”

Of course he didn’t know and that’s what he was getting at, but he hadn’t thought to ask in so many words.

Snake was the one who picked it back up again. “Listen.”

He listened. The city was loud. Snake spoke slowly.

“There’s a world full of people. Awful people. People who’ll hold you prisoner. People who’ll hurt you. But it’s a whole damn world. _Full._ Of people. Do you get that?”

He listened.

“You meet better people. People who won’t mind that you’re different from them. People who’ll agree with your values. People who’ll disagree but still care about the person you are. People worth fighting for. Do you know where those people are?”

Whatever answer he gave would have been wrong, so he kept listening.

Snake gestured to the city below.

The buildings jutting out into the horizon went on and on in the blackness. Car horns sang like the birds would be in a few hours. Somewhere somebody shouted in shock, then broke out into shameless laughter. Solitary windows of apartment complexes still had lights from TVs or desk lamps shining away. Freckles on a formless body. Human beings lived there.

“Soon enough you’ll have to stop fighting and join them.”

“I don’t know how that’ll ever happen. Feels like I don't have much to live for outside of this, y’know?”

“‘Course you do." He frowned into the distance as if genuinely offended.

He looked at his open palm, flexed and relaxed his fingers. His prints were long gone but his lifeline ran deep from one edge of his hand to the other. “I just wonder what it's for.”

“You gotta live, Jack.” He didn't think his name could sound the way he said it. “Otherwise everyone who came before you did it for nothing.”

There was a human heart in his chest and it screamed the way human hearts did. “I’d always hoped I would meet you. Growing up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He appended, softly, “We all did.”

“I’d like to meet this ‘me’ someday too.” His lip twisted at a private joke. “Thought I met him once, but it was no big deal.”

“Huh.”

He’d taken the pack out of his hip pocket and passed it to him. “Want one?”

He sighed. “I don't smoke.”

“Asked if you _wanted_ one.”

Jack took one. He held it between the tips of his fingers until the first streaks of dawn coloured the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> snake is raiden's uncle and if you read this as romantic i'll take your eyebrows
> 
> if you liked this piece, you can follow my [tumblr](https://shimmervee.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/shimmervee)!


End file.
